Contents

Mies and Reich were offered the commission of this building in 1928 after his successful administration of the 1927 Werkbund exhibition in Stuttgart. The German Republic entrusted Mies with the artistic management and erection of not only the Barcelona Pavilion, but for the buildings for all the German sections at the 1929 International Exhibition. However, Mies had severe time constraints—he had to design the Barcelona Pavilion in less than a year—and was also dealing with uncertain economic conditions.

In the years following World War I, Germany started to turn around. The economy started to recover after the 1924 Dawes Plan. The pavilion for the International Exhibition was supposed to represent the new Weimar Germany: democratic, culturally progressive, prospering, and thoroughly pacifist; a self-portrait through architecture.[2] The Commissioner, Georg von Schnitzler said it should give "voice to the spirit of a new era".[3] This concept was carried out with the realization of the "Free plan" and the "Floating roof".[2]

Mies's response to the proposal by von Schnitzler was radical. After rejecting the original site for aesthetic reasons, Mies agreed to a quiet site at the narrow side of a wide, diagonal axis, where the pavilion would still offer viewpoints and a route leading to one of the exhibition's main attractions, the Poble Espanyol.[4]

The pavilion was to be bare, with no exhibits, leaving only the structure accompanying a single sculpture and specially-designed furniture (the Barcelona Chair). This lack of accommodation enabled Mies to treat the Pavilion as a continuous space; blurring inside and outside. "The design was predicated on an absolute distinction between structure and enclosure—a regular grid of cruciform steel columns interspersed by freely spaced planes".[3] However, the structure was more of a hybrid style, some of these planes also acted as supports.[3] The floor plan is very simple. The entire building rests on a plinth of travertine.[citation needed] A southern U-shaped enclosure, also of travertine, helps form a service annex and a large water basin. The floor slabs of the pavilion project out and over the pool—once again connecting inside and out. Another U-shaped wall on the opposite side of the site also forms a smaller water basin. This is where the statue by Georg Kolbe sits. The roof plates, relatively small, are supported by the chrome-clad, cruciform columns. This gives the impression of a hovering roof.[2] Robin Evans said that the reflective columns appear to be struggling to hold the "floating" roof plane down, not to be bearing its weight.[3]

Mies wanted this building to become "an ideal zone of tranquillity" for the weary visitor, who should be invited into the pavilion on the way to the next attraction. Since the pavilion lacked a real exhibition space, the building itself was to become the exhibit. The pavilion was designed to "block" any passage through the site, rather, one would have to go through the building. Visitors would enter by going up a few stairs, and due to the slightly sloped site, would leave at ground level in the direction of the Poble Espanyol. The visitors were not meant to be led in a straight line through the building, but to take continuous turnabouts. The walls not only created space, but also directed visitor's movements. This was achieved by wall surfaces being displaced against each other, running past each other, and creating a space that became narrower or wider.

Another unique feature of this building is the exotic materials Mies chooses to use. Plates of high-grade stone materials like veneers of Tinos verde antico marble and golden onyx as well as tinted glass of grey, green, white, as well as translucent glass, perform exclusively as spatial dividers.

Because this was planned as an exhibition pavilion, it was intended to exist only temporarily. The building was torn down in early 1930, not even a year after it was completed. However, thanks to black-and-white photos and original plans, a group of Catalan architects reconstructed the pavilion permanently between 1983 and 1986.[2]

The Pavilion was not only a pioneer for construction forms with a fresh, disciplined understanding of space, but also for modelling new opportunities for an association of free art and architecture. Mies placed Georg Kolbe's Alba ("Dawn")[5] in the small water basin, leaving the larger one all the more empty. The sculpture also ties into the highly reflective materials Mies used—he chose the place where these optical effects would have the strongest impact; the building offers multiple views of Alba. "From now on, in the sense of equality for juxtaposing building and visual work, sculptures were no longer to be applied retrospectively to the building, but rather to be a part of the spatial design, to help define and interpret it. To the day, one of the most notable examples is the Barcelona Pavilion".[4]

Since the Pavilion's reconstruction in the 1980s, the Mies van der Rohe Foundation has invited leading artists and architects to temporarily alter the Pavilion. These installations and alterations, called "interventions", have kept the pavilion as a node of debate on architectural ideas and practices. The list of invited people includes architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa who added spiral acrylic interior walls,[6] artist Ai Weiwei who refilled two pools with coffee and milk,[7]Andrés Jaque[8] who revealed the pavilion's so far disregarded basement and its role in hiding the daily making of the site's experience, Enric Miralles, Antoni Muntadas who brought to the pavilion the smell of the MoMA archives where its memory is preserved and Jordi Bernadó who removed the pavilion's glass doors.[9]

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd Wright, he is regarded as one of the pioneers of modernist architecture.

Modern architecture

Modern architecture, or modernist architecture was based upon new and innovative technologies of construction, particularly the use of glass, steel and reinforced concrete; the idea that form should follow function; an embrace of minimalism; and a rejection of ornament.
It emerged in the first half of the 20th century and became dominant after World War II until the 1980s, when it was gradually replaced as the
principal style for institutional and corporate buildings by postmodern architecture.

Deutscher Werkbund

The Deutscher Werkbund is a German association of artists, architects, designers, and industrialists, established in 1907. The Werkbund became an important element in the development of modern architecture and industrial design, particularly in the later creation of the Bauhaus school of design. Its initial purpose was to establish a partnership of product manufacturers with design professionals to improve the competitiveness of German companies in global markets. The Werkbund was less an artistic movement than a state-sponsored effort to integrate traditional crafts and industrial mass production techniques, to put Germany on a competitive footing with England and the United States. Its motto Vom Sofakissen zum Städtebau indicates its range of interest.

Toronto–Dominion Centre

The Toronto-Dominion Centre, or TD Centre, is a cluster of buildings in downtown Toronto owned by Cadillac Fairview. It serves as the global headquarters for its anchor tenant, the Toronto-Dominion Bank, and provides office and retail space for many other businesses. The complex consists of six towers and a pavilion covered in bronze-tinted glass and black painted steel. Approximately 21,000 people work in the complex, making it the largest commercial office complex in Canada.

Barcelona chair

The Barcelona chair is a chair designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich. It was originally designed for the German Pavilion, that country's entry for the International Exposition of 1929, which was hosted by Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was first used in Villa Tugendhat, a World Heritage Site designed by Mies van der Rohe in the city of Brno.

Neue Nationalgalerie

The Neue Nationalgalerie at the Kulturforum is a museum for modern art in Berlin, with its main focus on the early 20th century. It is part of the National Gallery of the Berlin State Museums. The museum building and its sculpture gardens were designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and opened in 1968.

Wilhelm Lehmbruck

Georg Kolbe

Georg Kolbe was the leading German figure sculptor of his generation, in a vigorous, modern, simplified classical style similar to Aristide Maillol of France.

Westmount Square

Westmount Square is a residential and office complex located in Westmount, Quebec, Canada. There are two of residential apartment buildings, and two office buildings. These towers sit atop an underground shopping centre consisting of thirty-five shops. It is located between Saint Catherine Street and De Maisonneuve Boulevard and between Wood Avenue and Greene Avenue. It is connected to Place Alexis Nihon and the Atwater Metro station by an underground tunnel.

S. R. Crown Hall

S. R. Crown Hall, designed by the German-American Modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, is the home of the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Illinois.

Weissenhof Estate

The Weissenhof Estate (German:Weißenhofsiedlung) is a housing estate built for the Deutscher Werkbund exhibition in Stuttgart in 1927. It was an international showcase of what later became known as the International style of architecture. Two of the buildings were designed by the French-Swiss architect Le Corbusier and these are now part of the World Heritage Site The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, an Outstanding Contribution to the Modern Movement, which was designated in 2016. The World Heritage Site consists of 17 separate sites in seven countries.

New Objectivity (architecture)

The New Objectivity is a name often given to the Modern architecture that emerged in Europe, primarily German-speaking Europe, in the 1920s and 30s. It is also frequently called Neues Bauen. The New Objectivity remodeled many German cities in this period.

1929 Barcelona International Exposition

The 1929 Barcelona International Exposition was the second World Fair to be held in Barcelona, the first one being in 1888. It took place from 20 May 1929 to 15 January 1930 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It was held on Montjuïc, the hill overlooking the harbor, southwest of the city center, and covered an area of 118 hectares at an estimated cost of 130 million pesetas. Twenty European nations participated in the fair, including Germany, Britain, Belgium, Denmark, France, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Romania and Switzerland. In addition, private organizations from the United States and Japan participated. Latin American countries as well as the United States were represented in the Ibero-Americana section in Sevilla.

Santa Fe Federal Savings and Loan Association

Santa Fe Federal Savings and Loan Association, also known as American Savings and the Palm Springs Art Museum Architecture & Design Center/Edwards Harris Pavilion, is a historic building located in Palm Springs, California. The building is a fine example of the short span of time that master architect E. Stewart Williams used the International Style of architecture for commercial buildings in the early 1960s. The inspiration for this building was the Barcelona Pavilion (1929) by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The single-story structure features a flat roof, deep overhangs, steel-frame construction, thin steel posts, and large glass surface areas. Full-height sliding perforated metal panels were used to control the sunshine into the interior. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.

Flores & Prats

Flores & Prats is an architectural practice based in Barcelona, Spain, founded by Eva Prats and Ricardo Flores in 1998.

Pavilion (exhibition)

A pavilion is a genre of building often found at large international exhibitions such as a World's Fair that may be designed by a well known architect or designer from the exhibiting country. It may showcase the latest technology of the exhibitor or be designed in what is considered the national architectural style of the exhibiting country. The German pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition, for instance, was designed by noted modernist German architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich.